Numerical Study of the Cerebro-Spinal Fluid (CSF) Dynamics Under Quasistatic Condition During a Cardiac Cycle

In this study, we present a method to perform a numerical simulation of the flow dynamics of the Cerebrospinal Fluid (CSF) based on anatomical Magnetic Resonance Images (MRI). The Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software, written in language C, integrates different numerical schemes to solve the governing equations. The time derivatives were discretized using the Crank-Nicolson scheme. The equation of continuity was modified by introducing an artificial compressibility and discretized by a finite difference scheme. The meshed boundary of the CSF was immersed in a Marker-And- Cell staggered grid for to take into account fluid-structures interactions. Equations of hydrodynamics were solved with an iterative method under different quasi-static conditions. The anatomical basis of our simulations was generated from individual MRI scans. The surface of the anatomical flow channels of interest was extracted by segmentation and fl%triangulated. In parallel to the acquisition of the anatomical data CSF flow has been measured by MRL To characterize a whole cardiac cycle sixteen equidistant velocity measurements have been performed. In addition, a home made software was implemented to visualize computed data (velocities, pressure).
Papers from the 23rd Annual International conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, October 25-28, 2001, held in Istanbul, Turkey. See also ADM001351 for entire conference on cd-rom.